Adtech

As buying and selling digital ads became more complex, adtech, or advertising technology, emerged to streamline the process. Adtech is the backbone of modern digital marketing, enabling businesses to reach their target audiences more efficiently and effectively than ever before.

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What is adtech?

Adtech, or advertising technology, refers to the software and tools brands, retailers and publishers use to manage, buy, sell and measure digital advertising campaigns. Adtech helps advertisers reach their targeted audiences, analyse campaign performance and optimise ad spending.  

 

Adtech powers programmatic advertising, which uses an automated process to buy and sell digital ads across the web, mobile, apps, video and social media. It uses workflow automation and machine learning to deliver the most effective ads to audiences based on attributes such as demographics, shopping patterns and more. 

Adtech and martech

Adtech is separate from martech (marketing technology). While adtech focuses on reaching consumers through paid channels, martech focuses on reaching audiences via paid or owned channels, such as social media, email and content marketing. 

Adtech tools

Several tools comprise an ad tech ecosystem, ranging from data platforms to AI to forecasting software.  

Supply-side platform (SSP)

SSPs help publishers sell digital ad impressions like video, display and mobile ads. They collect user data from the publisher's website and then offer the impression to an ad exchange where advertisers bid on ad space. 

Demand-side platform (DSP)

DSPs allow advertisers to buy advertising automatically. They enable advertisers to examine ad impressions on multiple publishers' sites or apps and decide which units to purchase. 

Customer data platform (CDP)

CDPs gather customer data from multiple sources to create comprehensive customer profiles. These profiles integrate with martech and adtech platforms for personalisation, targeting and marketing automation. 

Artificial intelligence (AI)

AI is used to automate ad personalisation and optimisation. 

Agency trading desk (ATD)

An ATD helps with media planning and media buying, enabling agencies to manage an advertiser’s programmatic, bid-based media purchases as they happen across channels. It offers analytics on ad buys to clients throughout a campaign to help them make buying decisions. 

Ad server

Advertisers, agencies, ad networks and publishers can use ad servers to serve website ads. Ad servers can also be a central location for managing advertising campaigns, housing creative assets, optimising ad placements and tracking ad performance. 

Ad exchange

An ad exchange is a marketplace for DSPs and SSPs. It often involves a real-time auction, allowing businesses to quickly buy and sell ad space. 

Search engine marketing platforms

Search engines like Google allow advertisers to purchase ad space for specific keywords that they think will attract new customers. Gaining search exposure helps brands drive awareness and find more potential customers. 

Ad forecasting software

Ad forecasting software allows companies to budget for ad buying accurately and efficiently by gaining insights into consumer media consumption habits and approximate ad space costs. 

Adtech ecosystem

The adtech ecosystem includes many players, including big-name tech companies, creative agencies and media startups. While there are countless moving pieces to keep track of, the industry can be divided into several main categories: 

  • Publishers: Publishers produce creative content that serves as ad spaces and own those ad spaces. Traditional formats include magazines, but digital formats like podcasting and video companies have led to more diverse options. 
  • Advertisers: Advertisers buy and sell advertising spaces. Examples include Meta, Google and Amazon. 
  • Ad agencies: Ad agencies work with companies to plan advertisements and see them through to completion, overseeing the coordination of an ad strategy, development of creative elements and distribution. 
  • Ad networks: Ad networks compile unsold ads from various publishers and sell them to advertisers. They serve as a crucial bridge between publishers and advertisers. 
  • Adtech companies: Adtech companies develop technology-based solutions to address various challenges and improve processes within the adtech ecosystem. 

Here's an example of how the ecosystem works in practice:  

 

1. The advertiser engages an ad network to start a campaign. Through a DSP, they tell the market what the advertiser wants: their desired audience and number of impressions.

 

2. The advertiser delivers their ad content (primarily display, video, social and audio) to the network.

 

3. Meanwhile, the publisher uses an SSP to list their available ad space (inventory).

 

4. The ad exchange connects the two sides and uses real-time bidding (RTB) to run an open auction for ad content. The SSP bids on ad content on behalf of ad networks and publishers. Auctions take just fractions of a second.

 

5. The winning bidder publishes the ad on its platform and shares analytics with advertisers through the ad networks. 

Challenges in Adtech and Media Planning – and How to Solve for Them

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Adtech channels

There are many different digital adtech channels businesses can use for their advertising efforts:  

Online adtech

Online adtech advertisements are placed on websites designed to catch consumers' attention when searching for a related product or service. 

Mobile adtech

Mobile adtech aims to reach consumers via SMS messages or mobile apps. 

Email adtech

Email adtech allows advertisers to track metrics like the number of people who open an email and which links they click on, providing insights into how to improve their content. 

Social media adtech

Social media adtech allows businesses to place targeted ads on social media platforms and measure the performance of each ad. 

Broadcast and podcast adtech

Broadcast and podcast ad tech allows businesses to advertise on more audial and visual formats, such as podcasts and videos. 

Benefits of adtech

The following are key benefits of adtech: 

  • Better utilised ad spend. Adtech helps advertisers and agencies deliver the right content at the right time to the right audiences based on first-party and third-party insights. It ensures advertisements reach engaged audiences interested in the product or service.  
  • Operational efficiencies for campaigns. Adtech helps advertisers and agencies plan and measure campaigns more efficiently and effectively. This optimises productivity and saves time in the ad buying and planning process.  
  • Insights across the marketing funnel. Adtech enables brands to share their stories uniquely depending on where consumers are in the marketing funnel. It also enables cross-device tracking, allowing advertisers to understand the customer journey across devices and channels fully.  
  • Automation and scaling. Before adtech, advertising managers had to manually research, select, and approve individual ad slots or placements. Now, brands can use artificial intelligence and machine learning automation to buy ad space and optimise campaigns based on real-time results. 

Adtech influences how businesses and advertisers approach their campaigns as the digital landscape evolves. It empowers brands to achieve greater precision and scalability in advertising efforts by harnessing data, automation, advanced analytics and advertising technology solutions.  

Further reading

Check out these resources to learn more about adtech and its role in people-centric innovation.

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